The Sister I Raised Took My Bed And My Man Chapter 07

The Sister I Raised Took My Bed And My Man Chapter 07

Two years later, I came home with a brand–new 

project. 

My assistant picked me up from the airport and 

talked my ear off the whole drive, catching me up on everything I’d missed. 

The deal that collapsed when Marcus pulled 

funding had been rebuilt from scratch. I’d taken it over completely and tripled the profit margins. Two new partners were industry leaders. Next quarter’s 

schedule was already fully booked. 

“Ms. Vance, that year you were gone, Julian Croft came looking for you more than once.” My assistant glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “He called the 

office at first. Then he showed up in person twice. I 

turned him away both times. Last month he came again 

and left an envelope at the front desk.” 

I took it from her. 

Inside was a debit card and a folded piece of paper. 

His handwriting: [This card has forty thousand. I’ll 

keep paying down the rest. I’m sorry.] 

I folded the paper back up without a change of expression and slipped it into the envelope. 

Outside the window, the city flashed past in 

reverse. 

When we passed Magnolia Lane, I told her to pull 

over for a minute. 

The flower shop was still there. Chloe looked up, startled, and then broke into a smile. “You’re back.” 

She pulled me inside. We sat for a while. When I got 

up to leave, she stopped me. 

“She came by.” 

I didn’t turn around. 

“Last month. She took the rose bush. The one from your balcony. I’d kept it alive for over a year barely, and she came and carried it off.” 

“She said her new place doesn’t have a patio. Asked me if it could survive on a windowsill. I told her yes, but it wouldn’t bloom much. She said that was fine. She 

just wanted it to live.” 

Chloe paused. 

“She’s gotten thin. Looks like she’s barely scraping by. When she left, she was hugging that rose bush, had to keep stopping to catch her breath. I told her to take a cab. She shook her head and said the bus stop was just 

up the road.” 

I nodded and walked out. 

The sun was warm. The leaves on Magnolia Lane were starting to turn. 

Down the block, a woman walked past with a little girl. The girl pointed at the flowers in the window and said, Mommy, buy those. 

Her voice was bright and clear, the way Ivy’s used to be when she stood at the end of the alley and called 

after me. 

“Elena, slow down. I can’t keep up.” 

But all of that was gone now. 

The truth is, I already knew things weren’t going well for Ivy and Julian. 

While I was in Singapore, Chloe had kept me 

updated in bits and pieces. 

After the birthday barbecue disaster, Julian’s reputation never recovered. A man that obsessed with his image, publicly exposed for something that grimy, his rivals at the firm had wasted no time burying him. 

And Ivy, without me to shield her, without the patience Julian had shown during the honeymoon 

phase, was drowning. 

I’d spoiled her from the time she was a child. She never learned how to control her spending. Julian’s 

income wasn’t what it used to be, and they started 

fighting about money constantly. He blamed her for 

bleeding him dry. She blamed him for not being enough 

of a man. 

Julian used to love playing her savior. He used to 

love being the one she clung to. But that kind of 

desperation gets heavy fast. Eventually, it just 

smothers you. 

Ivy found my new number somewhere. The 

messages poured in one after another. 

[Elena, I was wrong. I know I was wrong. Julian is a 

monster. I was having chest pains and he was out 

drinking. I called him and he’d turned his phone off.] 

[Elena, please. Please help me. You’re the only person in the world who ever really loved me. I miss 

you so much.] 

[Remember when we were little? You had that fever 

and I went out in the snow to get your medicine. You 

said when you got better you’d buy me candy. We promised we’d be sisters forever. How could you just 

leave me behind?] 

I listened to her voice notes. I’m not made of stone, 

something in me stirred. 

But some things, once they’re broken, stay broken. 

I could forgive. I couldn’t forget. 

I could let go. I couldn’t go back. 

Ivy chose her path. No one pushed her. 

She told me the person she hated most her whole 

life was me. She told me my love was suffocating her, 

and that was why she fought so hard to escape. 

She told me she would stay with Julian no matter 

how much I hated her for it. 

Now she was free. 

She had exactly what she wanted. 

I was quiet for a long time. Then I typed back: [Live 

your life. Don’t contact me again.] 

And I blocked her on everything.